From the doctor’s practice to the bed. Discourse, visual culture, erotica and sexology in Argentina

Abstract

The constitution of sexology in Argentina as a subfield of knowledge resulted from the condensation of previous traditions among doctors. The transnational circulation of knowledge, classification manuals and foreign studies were decisive for the field’s intervention practices and thought. This article analyzes the work of Rinaldi Pelleginni, “Sexuología”, which occupies an important place in this scientific community. The text analyzes discursive nodes and its images from a visual studies perspective, as a mean of approaching how some actors were imagined by this field and what they considered “normal”: the beautiful, the erotic, and the moral.